But as you notice your anxiety and struggleto tamp it down, you feel it escalate rather than diminish. Your body betrays you in a flush of self-conscious discomfort. Your palms get sweaty, your heart races, your voice starts to quiver.

It becomes impossible to fake being calm once you’ve given into your fear of your anxiety. And even harder to use its message to your advantage.

College students, for example, when asked by researchers to suppress anxious thoughts about an imminent painful medical procedure, demonstrated more anxiety as a result of trying to suppress their anxiety.

After all, anxiety is a resource that helps us stay abreast of the things we care about most, and when it is ignored or suppressed, it escalates.

That’s its job —​ to get our attention so we will address the problem.

Anxiety isn’t the problem, it’s the messenger. And fighting the messenger doesn’t help it go away — only listening to its message does.

Here are 7 things to remember to help you keep your cool, so you can stop fighting with your anxiety: